Midtown Lunch

Most people know about the dirt-cheap cabbie favorite Lahore Deli located in a closet-size space on Crosby St. in SoHo, but were you aware they have a competitor a short walk away? Right next door to a Vietnamese restaurant is Curry & Tandoor Corner (listed online as Welcome To India). It’s the place that looks like a bodega but isn’t. When I went in for lunch there was no one eating there – only the proprietor waiting for customers and a bored looking man reading the paper. This is sort of sad because based on the lunch I had here the food is great, cheap, and sometimes you’re just in the mood for a kati roll.

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We have plenty of street meat options downtown but they’re pretty much all one-cart operations. That was why I was at first confused, and then excited when I saw that the Biryani House cart that has brought kati rolls and biryani to the Financial District added a second cart next door with an all-curry menu. A quick chat with the guy working there revealed they’ve been there for a couple of days and serve Kashmiri curries so it’s a completely different menu from the regular cart that sells everything from hot dogs to chicken tikka. As he so eloquently put it “they serve dry curries and ours are wet.” OK then! Read more »

We’ve all been there: You go to a by-the-pound buffet and have to hold back on the heavy items for fear of paying $20 for lunch. A couple of Indian restaurants in Tribeca offer all-you-can-eat lunch buffets, including Salaam Bombay on Greenwich St. (btw. Duane & Reade) and Taj Tribeca. But they’re also both a few dollars over the $10 mark that I try to not top unless it involves Russian spa cuisine. So when I saw that in addition to the eat-in buffet at Salaam Bombay, you could also stuff a takeaway container for $10 I smelled a challenge. Read more »

I don’t know about all of you, but normally when I want Indian food I don’t head to a place that’s a transplant from Long Island and touts how healthy its food is. In Soho the options are somewhat limited for Indian food options at ML prices (other than Lahore Deli), and Hampton Chutney Co. on Prince St. (btw. Crosby & Lafayette) is also one of the only places nearby that serves dosa. I was a little leery that the attempt at making my food healthy would sacrifice flavor, but I headed there anyway to see if it was Downtown Lunch worthy.

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It’s been a couple of months since Hot Clay Oven started serving its Indian-fusion version of Chipotle in the FiDi. You want a wrap made with naan? Or Indian meats on a salad? Or a fancy version of meat over rice from a cart? They have it all, plus mango lassi and booze. The only time I’ve eaten there was the first day of operation when they were giving out free food and the line was up the block. I wanted to check back in and see what the food was like when I had to pay money for it instead of freeloading.

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We have so many great food options downtown (yes, really!) that it’s rare I have envy for whatever new options pop up in midtown or other parts of the city. Last week Kati Roll Co. in midtown debuted a new roll and it looked delicious. I wanted one, but since that wasn’t going to happen at lunch time I decided to use what I had at my disposal and head over to Liberty Plaza and get my kati roll fix from the Bombay Biryany cart. Would this fulfill my craving for an Indian burrito?  Read more »

If you were outside yesterday then you know there were sub-freezing temperatures ahead of the snow, but that didn’t stop you lunch’ers from freeloading! When I got to Hot Clay Oven on Maiden Lane (at Pearl) at about 12:45 p.m. the line was nearly to the end of the block. It later grew longer as people walking by couldn’t resist the siren song of free food. After about a 30 minute wait outside, I got inside only to wait 30 more minutes to order my food. This wasn’t because of a lack of organization, but partly because people cut the line and partly because of the sheer number of people waiting. See what I scored for my patience after the jump. Read more »